Retired with a Masters degree? Share your experience as an online educator.

You have retired from your career with a lot of experience, expertise and stories to share. You are also – well - retired – and loving it. The thought of reporting into an office makes you cringe. Right now, you can travel where you want, visit family and leave for a trip on a whim.

But perhaps you’d also like a little boost in your income and to share your experience with those managing companies after you. Consulting is a bit restricting and requires travel to places you may have grown tired of during your career. Another Michigan winter? No thanks!

But … Staying at home or working a couple of hours a day while traveling doesn’t sound so bad, especially when you get to decide when you work and when you just relax.

Insert online teaching. Since 2005, we have been helping educators find jobs teaching online. A common misnomer is that to get an online teaching job, you must be a teacher by trade or have specialized educational training. You do not. Hundreds of retired workers have used our services or our free resources to get started teaching online, whether one class for fun and extra money, or as a second/third/fourth career in their golden years.

So what is required to teach online?

A masters degree

Experience in your field

Passion and commitment to educating others

Internet access and a good computer

What will you gain?

An opportunity to share your knowledge

Extra income

Incredibly flexible work

The ability to say “no!” to work you don’t want

Want to learn more? Join our Facebook group and learn about what others who have retired are doing to earn extra income and enjoy sharing their experience.

We know, getting started can feel a bit overwhelming. So here is a step by step guide to getting started. You can also check out our blog for specific articles on every one of these steps!

Write your cover letter. This should be generic enough for you to apply to a lot of positions but quickly customizable for special jobs or cold-calling a dean or hiring manager. We offer a cover letter writing service if you choose to have us do it. In your cover, be sure to mention your degree and how your experience prior to retirement will help you be a stellar educator. Don’t forget to mention you are technologically savvy!

Get your materials together. Common items on employment applications are 3 letters of recommendation, copies of unofficial transcripts for all of your degrees, and your CV. Have your paperwork ready and track your applications and HR website login information for quick updates and re-applying.

Job leads! You can use the big job boards, like higheredjobs and indeed. The problem with the big job boards is how many applicants you are likely competing against. If you found the job so easily, so did hundreds or thousands of other people competing for the same position. We always recommend subscribing to their job agents and applying to those jobs, but recommend you also apply to jobs that aren’t so easily found. We have a team who scours employment and HR web sites of 4000+ colleges every year to send you job leads that are not advertised on big boards. This means less competition and a greater chance your CV will be seen by the dean. We have job leads for less than 40 cents per day we send to your email directly, 3 to 4 times per week and support just about every specialization. We can also create a custom search just for you, which also includes the standard job leads. If you want to add even more to your search, we can find hiring manager names/email addresses for you through our custom contact service, allowing you to “cold call” a dean (our clients report great results!)

Network. Whether it’s only through the free Facebook group and LinkedIn, be sure you are networking. Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date and change your headline to make it clear you are open to being an online professor. If you need help, we have a variety of social media options available to make your life easier. We have a LinkedIn review, and we create or update social media profiles for you. Yes, most likely a dean will Google you before he or she even calls or emails.

Apply like crazy and don’t worry if you do not meet every single requirement. On average, it takes 80 to 120 applications per interview. Deans send interview emails on average 2 to 3 months after you apply. Don’t be discouraged if you send out 20 applications and you haven’t gotten a reply yet – this is normal. If you hit 3 months and 120 applications without an interview, you may want to have your CV professionally reviewed, if you haven’t already. The job requirements are often “nice to have” wish lists by deans or HR, not necessarily strict requirements. In fact, about 70% of our clients report being hired by a job that they “officially didn’t fully qualify for but applied to anyway”.